This invention relates to gaming peripherals for gaming machines such as slot machines. More particularly, the present invention relates to slot reels as gaming peripherals for gaming machines.
There are a wide variety of associated devices that can be connected to or serve as part of a gaming machine such as a slot machine. These devices provide gaming features that define or augment the game(s) played on the gaming machine. Some examples of these devices are slot reels, lights, ticket printers, card readers, speakers, bill validators, coin acceptors, display panels, key pads, and button pads. Many of these devices are built into the gaming machine. Often, a number of devices are grouped together in a separate box that is placed on top of the gaming machine. Devices of this type are commonly called a top box.
Typically, the gaining machine controls various combinations of devices. The features of a given device, including slot reels, are usually controlled by a “master gaming controller” within the gaming machine. For example to control a slot reel during a game, the master gaming controller might perform many different operations including instructing a stepper motor on the slot reel to spin and then stop at a certain position, instructing lights on the slot reel to go on and off in various patterns, or instructing a speaker connected to the slot reel to emit various sound patterns. For the master gaming controller to perform these operations, connections from the slot reel are wired directly into some type of electronic board (e.g., a “back plane” or “mother board”) containing the master gaming controller.
The components of a slot reel might include a reel of certain size, a reel strip indicating positions on the reel, a position sensor, a stepper motor, tampering sensors, a back light and an effects light. Parameters and operation features for each of these components must be known to the master gaming controller to operate a particular slot reel. The required information is incorporated into software and stored in some type of memory device on the master gaming controller. This slot reel specific software operates the features of the device during a game. Typically, the software is executed by a microprocessor located on the master gaming controller. As an example, to operate a slot reel, the development of the software for the master gaming controller may consider information such as the moment of inertia of the slot reel, the number of positions on the reel strip, the type of stepper motor, features of the stepper motor, signals that correspond to each feature on the stepper motor, and the response time of the stepper motor.
Traditionally, the master gaming controller has performed all game functions including the calculation of the game outcome, coin handling, communications with external devices, lighting control, operation of the slot reels, etc. for the slot machine. As the slot machine has evolved, the features offered to players have become more complex and the potential combinations of gaming devices available to a gaming machine has increased. For example, video animations, combined with digital audio have been added to the basic game play of the spinning reel slot machine. To execute these complex game features and perform all of the game functions, a microprocessor with significant computational capabilities is required. Further, to accommodate all of the gaming devices within the gaming machine, the motherboard containing the microprocessor must have the necessary circuitry and wiring needed to communicate with the all of the devices operated by the master gaming controller. In the past, instead of designing one motherboard that could accommodate communications with all of the potential gaming devices, a number of different motherboards were designed, each accommodating communications with some subset of the available gaming devices.
Disadvantages of the current slot machine architecture include the following. First, the number of types of motherboards needed to accommodate all of the potential combinations of gaming devices has become large. Second, the computational capabilities of the motherboard needed to drive all the devices has become large. Third, when devices are added to augment the features of the gaming machine or when devices are replaced for maintenance the steps necessary to rewire the device onto the motherboard and load the appropriate software onto the motherboard can be time consuming and require significant shutdown time for the gaming machine. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide slot reels that are compatible with a standard communication protocol and/or connection system for installing or removing devices controlled by a master gaming controller. A slot reel gaming peripheral that is compatible with a standard communication protocol and/or connection system may reduce the number of types of motherboards that are needed for the gaming machine and may reduce the amount of maintenance time when a slot reel is replaced. Further, it would be desirable to have the slot reel gaming peripheral control some of its own functions rather than having all the functions controlled by the master gaming controller. This feature might reduce the load on the computational resources of the master gaming controller.